Pre-ordering albums from iTunes/Apple

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iPad Wizard

Ok...in a moment of weakness I decided to pre-order an album from iTunes (on my iPad). It was Ghost Stories by Coldplay. $9.99 for the album and there are nine songs on it. Turns out one song was listed as available and it downloaded to my iPad. The album is suppose to be available on May 16, 2014.

A couple of days later I get another email saying another title from this album is available. I think great, give it to me. It gets downloaded. Somewhere in there there was a third song...that too is on my device.

So, I have 3 songs from this album. Then I get one of those receipts emails. That shows these three songs from the album at $1.29 each. I do math of a living and immediately realized they were charging me the single title rate for these songs. So I wrote them with telling me they were overcharging me for these songs. I've gone back and forth twice on this...trying to get them to charge me $9.99/9 for each song.

But I think they have invented an underhanded way to trick me into paying the single title rate rather than the album rate for this album. I agreed to buy all the songs on the album for $9.99. I didn't agree to buy only this song or that song (I never do this -- I buy either the entire thing or nothing, just my way) for a singles rate. It seems that Apple is trying to convert my album purchase into a bunch of singles purchases for the express purpose of getting more money for the same thing. For a company that supposedly has $160 Billion in the bank, this seems like a very rapacious thing to be doing. I won't have anything to do with this kind of practice, even if we are only talking about a few pennies. There are plenty of other options to buy music. I didn't have to have these songs right now...I took them because I thought there were providing a convenient and friendly service showing the benefits of using iTunes as a source. The thought of them trying to squeeze me for a few more pennies so they can overfill they coffers just drive me nuts.

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iPad Wizard

I would not mind if they charged be the single rate up to $9.99, but after two emails they never mentioned it. I'm still hoping to hear back from them, however. Part of me says let it slide, but another part wants the right thing done. Thanks for the comment, leelai.

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iPad Wizard

My faith is restored. I had to go a step above the first individual because we just could not communicate effectively. It is as you thought, leelai. Here is the final response (name removed to protect the innocent):

This is Cxxxxxxx from the iTunes Store Customer Support. I hope you're doing very well.

I can see from your conversation with Vxxxxxxxx that there's a huge confusion about tracks being charged individually when you pre-ordered the album "Ghost Stories". I can totally understand where you're coming from on this matter and I hope I'll be able to clarify this for you once and for all.
The tracks that you were able to download prior to the album being released are what we call "Instant Gratification" tracks. These tracks so far were the following:

Midnight
Magic

A Sky Full of Stars

These tracks are ready to download immediately, but it doesn't mean that the whole album is already available for download (the album will actually be released at a certain time). The album "Ghost Stories" is expected to be released on May 19, 2014.

You were indeed charged for the songs mentioned above at $1.29 apiece. However, when you download the rest of the songs on the album (after you’ve been notified that your pre-ordered album is already available), you will only be charged for the rest of the songs; you won't be charged again for the songs you already paid for and downloaded, which are the ones indicated above. Simply put, when you download your pre-order on May 19, you will only be charged $6.12 for the rest of the songs, because those three tracks above at $3.87 (3 x $1.29) will be deducted from the pre-order price of $9.99.

Let's say for example that another track has been offered as Instant Gratification again, which means you have downloaded already four songs before the album is released. So, that would be four tracks at $5.16. When you download the album on May 19, you will only be charged $4.83. This is how pre-orders work; rest assured you will not be charged more than the pre-order price.

I hope this clears up any confusion you may have had over this matter. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reply back to this email and I will be delighted to assist you further.

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